Processes for preparing N-substituted salicylamides are disclosed in, for example, WO00/59863, WO01/92206 and WO01/70219, and an example process for preparing 5-CNAC (an N-substituted salicylamide) that is known in the art is shown in Scheme 1.

In addition, a common method of producing the salt of the 5-CNAC in the presence of NaOH and acetone is as shown in Scheme 2.

The present invention seeks improve the process of the prior art with a view to achieving a robust high yielding process suitable for producing bulk quantities of high quality product.